A tilted head and a smile from the object of her lustful stares greeted Sarah's entrance.
"Well, goodness me, Jimmy, I now have two regulars," she said with some surprise. "I'll finally be able to buy that Cadillac."
"Yeah, well, I discovered this place before it was cool," Jim said cynically, his eyes not leaving the television.
"You're right," she said as her eyes went wide. "I don't know if I can take the hustle and bustle of being such a trendy hotspot."
"Money will change you," Jim agreed.
"God, it so would," she said dreamily, as if imagining her riches.
Sarah smiled. For brief moment in her fitful sleep, she'd thought she might have imagined the place, might have imagined both the woman and the bar. As Sarah walked towards the bar she was glad to see that she was wrong. The woman was even more beautiful than she remembered. Now her hair was braided behind her head and her gorgeous chest hidden behind a tight green cardigan. Now Sarah felt like the dirty old perv as she looked at the girl with the same lust. She confidently walked to the bar and took the same seat she had the day before.
"Shot and a beer," she ordered.
To her surprise, though, the bartender shook her head. "Nope, can't do it," she said. "You get one day to anonymously drink away your sorrows, but if you're going to spend all of Tuesday and Wednesday drinking here then we're going to talk and figure out why."
"I don't really want to bore you with my problems," Sarah said. It was true. She appreciated the offer, even if the sympathetic ear of the bartender struck her as a tad cliché, but she was not a sharer at the best of times. Sarah had grown up and been taught to tough out her problems, deal with them herself.
"Yeah, well, tough," the bartender said, pointing to a sign on the bar proclaiming the establishment's right to refuse service. "At the very least you're going to tell me your name and what your story is."
Sarah nodded. She could do that.
"Sarah Conover then," Sarah said, extending her hand.
"June Reilly," the bartender said, gripping the extended hand. Her grip was firm but soft and Sarah shook it with a smile.
"June, huh?" Sarah chuckled
"Yeah, yeah, I was named after my dearly departed grandmother, so no jokes" she said, clearly used to having to explain her slightly old-fashioned name
"No, I like it," Sarah said honestly. "It kind of fits."
"How so?"
"Well, you have kind of a fifties pin-up girl look, you know? Marilyn, Mansfield, that sort of thing," Sarah said with admiration, looking again at a body that seemed to defy description as well as gravity. Still, as she'd idly thought of June as she'd drifted off to her drunken sleep the night before, a pin-up model from that era struck her as the best comparison.
"Is that good?" June asked as she set a beer down in front of Sarah,
"Oh yeah," Sarah exclaimed with, she thought, perhaps a bit too much enthusiasm. June smiled and turned to Jim with a broad grin.
"See, told you," June said, leaning forward to playfully swat at the older man's arm with her bar towel. He reached back into his wallet and pulled out a crinkled five-dollar bill.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Jim said wearily.
Sarah looked at the exchange with a little confusion. A look that June caught.
"We bet as to whether or not you were gay."
Sarah was a little taken back. She wasn't sure she liked being the subject of that bet. She wasn't used to her sexuality being a matter of public discussion and it made her feel a brief flash of panic. Sarah had to remind herself that she no longer had professional reasons to worry anymore about anyone knowing she was gay and she had no other concerns about being outed.
